Yesterday Scotland’s Government has voted to ban Fracking for which I am very grateful. I have therefore chosen a poem by Paul Colvin which in my view illustrates why this has been a great decision.
File:HydroFrac2.svg – Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons2000 × 1170
Fracking Shale.
The shared black roads that we have tarred
Will have no barbed wires, troops or guards
No sentry posts, no stringent lines
No this is yours and this is mine.
We can be great, they say we can’t
As the puppets dance to the Moron’s chant
The simple truths have been outlined
But though they read, fear’s made them blind
They’ll pay us to store nuclear waste
But the deadly toxins, our hills, will baste
Gone, will be forests, dead the trees
What’s left of nature’s on its knees
Now they’ve licenses to drill for shale
Can the earth survive, our Holy Grail,
As toxic spores seep through or hills
And by our hillsides more road-kill
Not killed by cars but dead through greed
For the shale has poisoned all their feed
Contaminants unknown to men
Run down through mountains to our glens
Destroying weeds and flowers, plants
Will wildlife die or just decant?
Can water be defined as clean
Or will its taste be now obscene?
Streams roll to rivers, flow to seas
Will sea life last or die diseased
Seventy thousand fish lie dead
From the graveyard that is our seabed
They’re blaming shale, news today,
Fracking, friends, is on its way
And for what, when all is done,
We’ve ample power in the sun
But the sun can’t make the rich more rich
So they’ll kill the earth, Ain’t life a bitch!
By Paul Colvin
Categories: Uncategorized
Friend Wendy wrote this some years ago – there were two things happening – a massive oil spill caused by drilling ‘going wrong’, and those miners who were trapped underground, and who showed such strength and fortitude.
Both of these events stemmed from the same thing – greed and exploitation. Same applies to fracking.
I raised a glass when I heard that it has been banned indefinitely in Scotland – let’s hope the rest of Britain follows suit – SOON!
Deep Down
The earth is bleeding,
a deep puncture wound,
beyond reach of any surgeon’s hand,
gushing, thick, black viscous gore,
sickly slick, spreading,
more and more,
contaminating, clogging,
sticking to all
it touches.
Small figures and crafts
scamper round the carnage,
like frantic ants,
whose homely mound
has been kicked,
burst open and
spread over the ground,
desperate to save
their babies.
Chemically sprayed ,
the multiplying masses
are scattered
by wind and wave,
detergents disseminate
in swirling current,
no healing coagulates
can naturally stave
the process.
Pathetic attempts
to stem the flow
repeatedly fail,
but, eventually, slow
then stop
the breach,
the cost, we know
will continue
to grow.
Thousands of miles,
across sea and land,
high in the mountains,
deep underground,
another drama unfolds
to the world
a message of hope
cries out to be heard:
we 33 are OK in the shelter.
Forget exploration,
forget exploitation,
there’s something more precious
to find,
a conduit, a channel,
a tunnel of light,
struck down through the earth,
on the tide
of human spirit
A beam, a beacon
shining so bright,
it banishes the darkness,
puts fear to flight;
with faith
and patient dignity,
in the face
of such plight:
we, the 33, have returned.
Two giant conglomerations
technological stratifications,
one drilling, through greed and pain,
one bringing to life, again,
death and life,
so closely matched,
desperate drilling,
down and down,
the need is great,
a powerful draw,
below the ocean,
beneath the ground;
a question
hangs over us,
now:
Did we listen
have we heard
something shifting
conscience stirred?
Remember the dead,
remember those saved,
pray that Humanity
will emerge from the cave,
and step
into
the light.
Wendy Alford October 2010